One of the things that I've really struggled with my first 6 months of photographing is deciding when to change a photo to black and white. I know that certain times a black and white photo can look even better than the color version but knowing when is very difficult for me. One of the first photos I decided to turn into black and white is below and I think it turned out ok. At least I think so. One additional edit I did was to add a burnt edge. As you can see the edge of the photo is slightly darker. I think I got "action" happy in photoshop when I first started using them. I downloaded several actions from some websites and I was trying them left and right. I'm not real happy with the left and top edges as I wish I had left them lighter. Oh well, I'm learning!

This photo is of my nephew Luke and I'm really happy with the look and very happy with how sharp it turned out. This was one of the first photos that I really looked at and thought, "wow, this was not taken with a point and shoot camera!" If you want to see the original photo prior to edits check it out here on my flickr site.

Taken: December 29, 2008
Focal length: 39mm
Shutter speed: 1/250 sec
Aperture: f/5.0
ISO: 400
Lens: EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

Check out my flickr site here!